All tagged Veterans in the Workforce
I left active duty in 2014, in June of this year I will have officially been out of the Marines longer than I was in the Marines. That in and of itself doesn’t really mean anything, it’s just an arbitrary statistic. However, it does mean that my military service is largely irrelevant.
The United States Marine Corps is respected worldwide as an expeditionary fighting force, the likes of which the world has never seen, but also (and perhaps more importantly) the Corps is one of the foremost authorities in professionalism, leadership, and personal development techniques. Many young men and women (including myself back in 2011), stepped on the yellow footprints of a Marine Corps Recruit Depot and began a lifelong change of perspective.
There is a saying that if you don’t control your own time someone will control it for you. While I wholly believe in this saying I am not going to try and give you some new time management strategy. There are plenty of experts out there who can do that way better than I can.
I know what all three people who read this are asking? Is the blog back, are there plans for new posts, what has been going on for the past couple years while the blog has languished in un-updated horror? Well, some of those are yes, some are maybe, some are I am not sure.
Again, this is not to say you cannot be proud, you cannot wear your service like a badge of honor, but the moment that service creates a feeling of superiority between you and the rest of the population it becomes a problem.
There are ~350 million people in the United States. There are ~1.3m service members and ~20m veterans. It is not the job of civilians to assimilate to you or to understand your unique background; it is up to you to help them understand where you came from and assimilate into civilian society.
If you are one of probably four people that read this blog you may notice something. The “Hire Me” link is missing from the main page. Which means exactly what you think it means. I finally found a job! I took a position with an e-commerce marketing and brand management firm and I am just over 30 days in.
On Tuesday of next week I will be speaking on a panel put on by Pride Global called “Veterans in the Workforce” (click link to register). I will be speaking from the perspective of the veteran job seeker and I am honored to be able to provide my views on what that has been like.